


all i wanted

by BlackJacketsandPens



Series: Ardyn Yescon Week 2k18 [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn YesCon Week, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, angst is my jam, slight body horror, there is angst and parallels and just you're welcome for stabbing you in the heart :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: Ardyn Yescon Week 2018, Day 4 - "Pain/Angst"Imprisoned for a wrong he did not commit, by a brother he thought he could trust -- he has lost everything. There is only one thing he wants now. He can only pray the gods give it. And all this...and he failed in the one thing he’d wanted.TW: Suicidal thoughts (a lot of them) and some slight body horror.





	all i wanted

The prison was small. Too small. Too small, too dark, the walls closing in and the ceiling too high and the window letting only enough sun in to burn him unless he crouched in the back, in the part slightly lower than than the rest, huddled up in the torn remnants of his clothes. Too small, too crushing in its precariously tall walls, leaning in on the top to make it almost a pyramid shape, too-- too black, the night sucking all the light away even if the light burned him now.

Burned him-- burned him, because he wasn’t human. Not entirely, not-- he was still human, but he was sick, so sick, the Scourge in him worsening by the day. The whole prison reeked of burning rubber and sulphur, reeked of the acrid stench of ichor, and he was all but coated in the stuff as he couldn’t stop coughing it up. Every time he thought it was over he’d double over again, and there was more. His skin was too pale, and he could see his veins through it, black and pumping slow, stained here and there with dark bruises.

He was sick, he’d made himself so sick, he’d saved hundreds of lives, thousands of lives, and it was-- it was all for nothing.

He had torn his own life apart, single-handedly ruined everything, and all because he was naive enough to think he could _help_. He thought he could help, and now-- and now--

He can hardly stop crying, too, ugly sobs that echo in the blackness and smallness of the prison, the only noise he makes beyond whimpers and moans of pain and occasional hoarse begging for Ramuh to end this. Angelgard was his home, wasn’t it? Where was he? Why couldn’t he stop this suffering? Why wouldn’t he _end_ this?

He can’t claw the image out of his head, no matter how hard he scratches at his face, at his head, trying to rip it out of him. Trying to make himself forget. But he can’t, he can’t forget, he will never get it out of his head, never get it off the back of his eyelids when he closes his eyes.

Stella, his Stella, part of his soul, his Oracle, the woman he’d done this all for-- to save her, to help her, to prevent her from burning her life out like a candle dipped in oil-- his Stella, screaming for them to stop, throwing herself between his blade and Somnus’-- his Stella, _his sword_ in her chest, blood staining her dress crimson-- the memory rips fresh sobs from him every time it hits him again, and it’s all he can do to throw himself at the walls of the prison, incoherent and grieving, begging in barely comprehensible words for someone to end it, _please_ , _god_ , end it.

He doesn’t want to live anymore. Not in this world without Stella. Not in this world without Gilgamesh, without Hermes, without Pyrrhus. He can’t. He cannot live without them, he cannot live knowing their deaths are his fault.

He didn’t draw the knife, he didn’t know for sure if they were dead or not, no, but it had been so long, if they had been-- if they were alive they’d have come for him. They were dead, they were all dead, Somnus had murdered them all to silence them, to keep them from saving him, to keep them from-- to keep anyone from remembering him. He’d be here and forgotten and no one would ever know.

No one would know and he’d rot here and waste away and-- and he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want it. He wanted to die, he wanted to stop living in this world where his soul had already left it. He had caused this-- _he had caused it_. His pride and his arrogance and his stupid goddamn naivete had murdered the people he’d loved most.

He had nothing. He had no reason to be alive, no reason to keep existing in this world where he would be nothing but a memory, and then not even that. No one was alive for him, no one would remember him, and he-- who would want to? He’d be a monster, he already was! He had murdered them all, he had killed them all, it was his fault, it was all his fault, and now all he had to show for it was the ichor that spilled from his lips and the agony that shook his emaciated frame.

No one came to his prison, either, not to feed him or look in on him-- there was silence, nothing but silence, echoing and horrible, the only sounds his tears and his moans and his screams. He wasn’t dying, though, the lack of food and water wasn’t killing him, and he wished it was, he wished something would, he wished his brother would just _kill him already_.

His strength left him after a while, after a time uncountable, and all he could do was lie on the stone floor in a growing puddle of ichor, black and thick and sticky, tears coming slow and wheezing and heavy with lack of strength to do much else. His vision swam, hazy and unfocused, and he didn’t think he could move if he tried -- the body-shaking coughs stole much of his energy, and...and at least he wasn’t in the sun. Though maybe it would kill him faster if he were.

Something flickers at the corner of his vision and he struggles to turn, to push himself up -- he slides on the ichor that’s staining the floor and crashes back to the ground again hard enough to set his head ringing, but he manages to get up again.

“--Stella?” He rasps, his voice gone. She is-- she is there, in the sliver of sunlight, her dress pristine white and her eyes soft and so, so very sad. He can’t keep focus on her, her edges seem lit like a star, flickering gold, and she stands and watches him. “Stella--”

He falls again as he tries to crawl forward, reaching for her, tears running down his face. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_.” It’s all he can say, all he can think, his entire being nothing but regret and guilt and sorrow. “All-- all I wanted-- all I wanted was to save you,” he tells her, voice weak and shaking, hand reaching for her, grasping at the shimmering glow that surrounded her. “It isn’t fair…”

She reaches out for him, then, and looks so sad, he shoves himself upright if only for just a step or two forward to get to her, even just to fall into her arms, open for him, and-- and then she’s gone.

She’s gone, nothing but motes of light fading into the darkness of the cell, and he does topple forward into the sliver of light the window shone down-- and he screams, screams as his skin smokes and blisters, and fights his way back into the shadows, slipping and sliding and falling twice more before he makes it back to his corner, trembling and weeping silently.

She’s gone, they were all gone, they were all gone and it was his fault, and all he’d wanted was to save her, protect them, protect his kingdom. And he’d failed. He’d failed them all. They were dead, his kingdom thought hm a monster, and everyone would forget him if they hadn’t forgotten him already. He’d rot here, the worst thing-- he wanted to _die_.

“Please,” he gasps out, to anyone would listen. “Please let me die.”

The day they brought the axe to the island, the day they finally executed him...it would be a blessing. He could finally _rest_.

He could finally be with them again.

**Author's Note:**

> :^)
> 
> No, but really. Angst is my jam and you're welcome for the feels knife to the chest. Repeatedly. Angelgard is awful and horrific and I hate looking at it and knowing Ardyn was probably imprisoned there for god knows how long. You can't tell me the man didn't develop claustrophobia.
> 
> But yes, parallels because I'm terrible and it's not like the gods WOULDN'T drag off Stella to glowy afterlife servitude the same way they did Luna, right? Poor kids.
> 
> Also not sorry for the last few paragraphs again, because we all know they won't and they don't.


End file.
